This novel is the product of more than ten years work and a lifetime of dreaming. It follows the course of two fictional characters who ship to France in search of adventure and service with the French in the war against Germany.

Jack Buck chooses the American volunteer ambulance service, while Charles Keeler joins the Foreign Legion. Both serve honorably but find themselves wanting to do more. They enlist in aviation, become pilots, and, eventually, members of the first and only American unit serving with the French.

The famous Lafayette Escadrille wages aerial combat from April of 1916 until February 1918 when it becomes the 103rd Squadron of the US Army Air Service. This novel tells their story through April 1917 when the United States enters the war on the side of France and Britain.

The rest of this historically-based story titled The Valiant and the Vanquished will describe the final days of the Lafayette Escadrille and their awkward integration into American service. It will continue to follow the Jack and Charlie and their teammates as they struggle to survive while performing great feats of heroism.

This is truly a story of passion and glory, of death and suffering, of the exhilaration of early flight, and of ordinary men and women living extraordinary lives.